Greenwith RTM rejects Teamster’s contract

Updated 4:03 pm, Wednesday, December 14, 2016

GREENWICH — The Representative Town Meeting has sent a new labor contract between the town and the Teamsters Local 456 back to the bargaining table after rejecting the proposed agreement Monday night.

By a vote of 105 to 70 with four abstentions, the body blocked further progress of the three-year deal with the union, which represents 389 full-time and 93 part-time employees working for the Board of Education.

Employees work as school custodians and in town departments including The Nathaniel Witherell, Parks and Recreation and Fleet.

Opponents of the contract applauded after the vote.

“We need to send a message that it isn’t business as usual in the town,” District 6 member George Sorenson said. “We need to take a look at these contracts. If we reject this contract, it will give the negotiators a little bit more power behind their negotiations.”

District 12 member Rob Perelli-Minetti added, “If they exceed the amounts we want, we will reject the contracts. Without that kind of a precedent, we are in for years and years of excessive increases.”

The agreement, which was reached through the use of a mediator, called for wage increases of 2.25 percent in each of the three years of the contract and would have moved the union members off of the town’s health care plan and onto the state’s.

David Detjen, chairman of the RTM’s Labor Contracts Committee, estimated the contract would have saved $1.8 million for the town. He also said 2.25 percent increases were below the statewide averages given in other contracts.

The union itself has not voted on the contract. The vote by the RTM was required by state statute, which gives a governmental body 44 days after an agreement is reached to consider it.

Since the Teamsters have not had a contract in place since June 30, any agreement will be retroactive.

The town will reenter negotiations with the Teamsters. If a new agreement is not reached, the union could ask for binding arbitration.

“If we were to reject this contract and it were to go to arbitration, the arbitrators typically look at what the average rate is and it is, in fact, more than what we have on the table now,” RTM District 3 member Michael Warner said. “The likelihood, if we were to reject this contract, of getting a lower amount is very unlikely.”

Town Labor Relations Director Al Cava said on Tuesday he expects to sit down with representatives from the union next week.

A bargaining session is likely for early in January, though Cava said it could come during the holidays if a date could be scheduled.

Cava said an arbitration process would take months.

Representatives from the Teamsters Local 456 did not return a call for comment.

RTM members who supported the contract pointed to several factors in its favor -- including moving the union to the state’s health care plan starting July 1, 2017, the beginning of the new fiscal year.

By missing the July 1 deadline, Detjen claimed the town would lose about $150,000 a month in savings because the union members would still be in the town’s plan.

Warner said rejecting the contract and pushing back potential health care savings was like the town “shooting itself in the foot.”

Budget Overview Committee Lucia Jansen disagreed, saying the wage increases were above marketplace value in Fairfield County and would have a “ripple impact” to other contracts.

District 7 member John Dolan, who was against the contract, said the Teamsters move to the state health care plan would gain them benefits that aren’t in other contracts.

Another opponent of the contract, District 7 member Peg Freiberg, said shifting people to the state plan was a temporary benefit, as opposed to a pay increase.

“At best we have minimization of the increase, but any increase that we approve on wages lasts forever and becomes increasingly compounded, as each year percentages get tacked onto the previous percentages,” Freiberg said.

Moving the Teamsters to the state healthcare network was the most recent attempt to save money on town insurance costs.